Overthrown
by icanhascamaro
Summary: Four years after the battle in Chicago, things are very different. Humanity is aware of, and some are angry at, the Cybertronians. Sam's death during a recent battle with some of the remaining Cons has forever altered the group. And what's this? Mikaela's back? You betcha. One-shot. TF4 author musings.


WARNING: sad fic is sad : (

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_The art of survival is a story that never ends._

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He was gone. My brave, foolishly endearing little charge was gone. Not even a year after Chicago and he was gone. The very reason behind it was maddening and unexpected. To add to that, Lockdown had arrived on Earth and his was an arrival I wish had never happened.

Yet brave, foolish Sam would never know of the evils that Lockdown brought with him.

No one should see their charge being killed. I did. I was too far away to help him, stuck in a battle against a Con that I swiftly killed, but I was too late. Even I as I had ran to Sam, I couldn't stop the shot that took his life. I was fast, but even I wasn't faster than a plasma shot. His eyes locked onto my optics and I could see the surprise and shock in them, and then...nothing.

The nothing was far worse than the surprise and shock.

Being Cybertronian meant that we did not have nightmares as the humans did. Yet we are cursed with a memory, of sorts, in which we can replay any moment in our long lives. I could easily recall Sam's death, could easily see the many different ways of potentially saving him. Some had a higher probability of him living than others.

Sam's death just added to the list of names of humans and Cybertronians that were dead. Offlined. Not here. And sadly, that list kept getting more names added to it.

Sideswipe vanished one orn, and no one knows yet what happened to him. I pray on the memory of the Allspark that he has not been sent to the Well. But I know that he would never go down without one Pit of a fight. Oh how I wish Sunstreaker had arrived with his brother, but not even Sideswipe had known where his twin was.

Both were aft-heads, but sorely missed aft-heads. Wherever they were. Maybe if they had both here, things would be different. Maybe if Jazz and Ironhide, even the lesser twins, hadn't been killed, things would be different. Maybe we would be okay.

Maybe Sam would have...

It took three weeks for me to find a suitable place for him. His creators, his parents, were missing as well. All of the internet searches in the world, literally in this case, weren't helping in locating them. We would find them, of that I had no doubt, but Sam couldn't wait.

It was difficult to tell those who knew Sam. Those that we could locate.

Sam and Carly had broken up about two months after the Chicago battle. Sam had finally decided to interact more with us, with the Autobots, and Carly had had enough. The breakup had been mutual and the two had still kept up communications. Platonic, but there. Carly had gone on to modeling and had been distraught when I had contacted her about Sam.

Mikaela had been distraught in her own way. She was pissed at Sam as much as I was. She had yelled and berated him, and promptly sent a 'Con to the Pit in his honor. Being that she was Ratchet's protege, she had been outfitted with a plasma blaster in her size. It was one of the weapons Wheeljack had been working on before Chicago. It was one of the last things he worked on. With Wheeljack, his invention either worked flawlessly for eons, or it instantly blew up on you.

The weapon he gave Mikaela was of the former. It fit her to a T and never let her down.

When I finally decided upon the proper location for Sam, I had almost smacked myself on my own helm for my stupidity in not thinking about it first. The Overlook was perfect.

Ratchet, however, mistook the length of my search (which wasn't long by our time standards, but long with regards to the length of time by which a human shell began decomposing) with grief, and, once I had decided on the Overlook, had taken Sam for burial on the Overlook without me.

On discovering this, I had raced to the Overlook. As the ground at my destination was just gravel on dirt, my hasty arrival almost sent Mikaela to the Pit. In other words, I nearly hit her. A long plume of dust was raised in my wake, illuminated by the orange glow of the setting sun.

"Damnit, Bee! You almost hit me!"

Naturally I felt terrible about that and I apologized as I carefully transformed and stood above her. My sensors informed me of her location with every step I took closer to Ratchet, who was looking exceptionally pissed. It was an expression that changed, mingled with sadness, when he saw me.

_:Mine,:_ I told him in a tone mingled with Guardian protocols that brooked no arguing. _:**I** will bury him.:_

_:You need to do this, Bumblebee, I understand that, but you cannot wait any longer.:_

My optics looked down at the pathetically still, white wrapped bundle at his feet. A twinge ran through my systems, almost sending my Guardian protocols into a rage. Couldn't help him,_ couldn't save him._

**_Failure_**

I almost keened at the rage and grief that tore through me. I was angry at the circumstances, angry at Sentinel, and angry at Sam himself for trying to distance himself, then trying to patch things up in that awkward way that Sam did things.

_:Mine.:_

Ratchet stepped around me and transformed, holding a door open for Mikaela. If Mikaela attempted to ignore or rebuke him, I didn't see it. I walked closer to the hole and didn't turn around until my CMO commed me to tell me to get my aft in gear.

Looking down at the hole Ratchet had dug, which was deeper than human rules dictated, and then looking back at the white wrapped bundle that was my charge, I sank to my knees and grieved silently.

Ratchet and Mikaela were still there, waiting for me just around the bend, waiting for me to finish this task.

It was with a heavy spark that I did.

Before I buried Sam, I scraped a shard of my golden armor from my right arm. Peeling back the white fabric, I embedded it in his right arm, then I closed the cloth. Energon dripped from the wound I'd given myself, staining the soft cloth.

Sorrow and anger racked through me on seeing his battered body again.

I gently picked up Sam's body, so light in my hands and yet heavy at the same time, and lowered it into the hole. In an homage, I began to play a song that Sam had really loved. I played it then, and only then, and as I lowered the first mounds of dirt onto my charge's white wrapped body.

The song wasn't done by the time I had placed the last of the dirt, but I was done with the song. I halted it and locked it, placing it deep in my memory core, along with all of my memories of Sam. As I encrypted those, I could feel the Guardian protocols start to ebb, to grow less painful.

To human eyes, his was an unmarked grave. Even as I made sure that it wasn't obvious that a body had recently been buried at one of the most popular human makeout locations in Tranquility, I made it obvious to my optics. The armor I buried with him, along with the Energon, would do that for me and any other Autobot. His location was noted in my processor, and of course I shared it with the others.

There were so slagging few of us now.

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It was barely a month later when another attack came. This one took Ratchet, in a move so shocking and unexpected, that the very action nearly tore us all apart.

I still didn't want to believe it. Who the frag took out the CMO? Then again, by that same argument, who took out the weapons specialist?

Insanity, pure and simple.

It was insane mostly because while Sentinel had taken out Ironhide, **_humans_** had taken out Ratchet.

We knew this because Ratchet had kept us comm linked throughout the entire ordeal. The rest of us had been away from base on a recon mission. We were still hunting down remaining Cons. We had thought things were getting back to normal. Foolishly, we had all gone, leaving Ratchet alone to guard the base. He was more than capable to handle any issues that could pop up. After all, nothing had ever gone wrong on Diego Garcia. Why would it start now?

We were so very, _very_ wrong.

The attack had come under the guise of a supply plane. But the human military that was on board, equipped with armor blasting sabot rounds, did not bring anything but pain. It was on the orders by the President himself, in a move to appease a growing movement by anti-alien groups (regardless of faction). All aliens were to be eliminated, once and for all.

NEST was to be Diego Garcia base was to be abandoned. The soldiers there were forced to reject us, to side against us, and that was what offlined Ratchet. Will had refused, as had Epps and the core of NEST that had bonded early on. Those that denied their superiors in this surge against Cybertronians were apprehended and taken away.

I still don't know what happened to them. I hoped that they would be alright, that they would survive this, but deep in my spark, I felt uncertainty.

Instead of going on the offensive, to go after and rescue our NEST allies, Optimus commed us and told us to separate. We would regroup in three months time, but keep in touch by private comm. He made it mandatory to find new alts. New alts that weren't blatant or ostentatious.

With all that had happened, the order to gain a new alt mode seemed almost trivial. Yet, I couldn't leave the Camaro behind. In my spark, it would be like leaving Sam, like abandoning all the hope and joy I'd felt in being his Guardian. The hope that our species could live together.

Instead I changed my alt to an even older version of the Camaro; 1967 instead of 1977. It was even grungier and beat up looking than my original Camaro form, and a lot of ways, beefier. I retained the two newer and sole older versions in my processor, but I also locked those deep in my memory core.

Maybe one day, I would unleash them.

But for now, we were in hiding. Again. Scattered to different corners of North America, operating on tightly encrypted comm links, subsisting on Earth gas with the help of converters that Wheeljack had made for us (yet another miracle that, thank Primus, worked flawlessly). We used holoforms when needed, and even obtained "owners" when we couldn't use holoforms.

We stayed in hiding even as we searched for a way out of this madness.

Even still, secondary madness persisted in the form of Lockdown, who was also hunting us as much as the mysterious military group was.

As the miles passed beneath my tires, I wondered if Sam was lucky, or if I was. His worries were over, while mine were just beginning.

After about two weeks, I was driving outside of Albuquerque when I saw her. The long dark hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, the clothes were a little ragged, but it was her. A black leather backpack, dirty with the grime of travel, and possibly battle, was slung over her left shoulder.

Slowing to a pace to keep up with her walking, I activated my holoform and rolled down my window. "Need a lift?"

"Go away."

"Mikaela, please get in."

Brilliant blue eyes looked at me and she stopped walking. "Bee?"

I stopped with her and opened my driver's side door in invitation. To my surprise, she shook her head.

"No, **_you're_ **driving," she said and walked around the front to the passenger's side. "Open up."

I did so, closing the driver's door as I did.

Shrugging off her backpack, she sat on the seat, closed the door, and looked around. "At least the inside is better looking than the outside." And it was, because I kept it the same interior as the newer Camaro form I (and Sam) had so enjoyed. The backpack was wedged by her feet in the footwell. I could sense the plasma gun inside.

Reactivating my holoform, that of a lean dark haired caucasian man in his late twenties, I shrugged. "Can't update the exterior just yet." I leaned closer to her. "We're in hiding." Then I leaned back and watched her. I wished I had some water for her. Maybe we could stop at a convenience store.

Mikaela was silent for a while, then spoke in a voice that was just shy of a whisper. It was very unlike her to be so quiet. "I know." She blinked her eyes twice and looked out of the passenger's side window. "Can you just drive?"

That was the easiest thing I could do for her.

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Okay, I _swear_ I can write more than one shots. This story was written based on what I've seen with the trailer. The idea for this story just popped in my head this morning and I decided to write it out. I hope it was enjoyable. I'm hoping that my musings are going to end up being wrong, but meh, figured I'd write something. n_n

In order to make things a little easier, Bumblebee's voice was fixed by Primus. Wheeljack? No, that might have exploded. Um, Ratchet fixed it.

And yes, I can write more than sob stories! I promise!

The song Bumblebee played, briefly, was the Bassnectar remix of Ellie Goulding's song _Lights._ It's really good. Please, play it with the bass up and the treble down to get the full awesome effect.

Any hints of Sam/Bee are unintentional. Sorry. Their relationship, as I write it, is purely friendship.

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In most humble honor of my Sam, a very sweet feral kitty, who I lost three weeks ago.

Rest in peace, my precious little one.

Late Spring 2010 - Early Spring 2014

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**((((( Disclaimer: Transformers is not owned by me. I am merely borrowing the characters for a short while.**  
**If I owned them, I never would've let a whole fricking ton of them be killed off in the third movie. And possibly fourth movie.  
****Please, Baybay, don't kill off Ratchet and Sideswipe. Pleeeeeeease!**  
**I can't stand the suspense. Is it summer _yet_? )))))**


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